13 May Meeting:
Participants: C Langdon-Orr (Chair), D Thompson, G Shearman, S Herlein Leite, V Scartezini, A Muehlberg, W Seltzer, H Xue, R Guerra, A Greenberg, B Brendler, S Bachollet, I Aizu, F Seye Sylla
Apologies: C Aguirre, J Morris, J Ovidio Salgueiro, H Diakite
Absent: M El Bashir, I Aizu, N Thu Hue
Staff: N Ashton-Hart, F Teboul, M Langenegger
Minutes taken by Staff in the first instance.
The Meeting Minutes of the last meeting were approved.
Liaison Report
The Board liaison gave an overview of the current issues at the Board level.
W Seltzer noted that the Board has not indicated a timeline at their last meeting regarding the introduction of new gTLDs. She further noted that there was no decision about whether trademarks should be respected at the TLD level. With regards to dispute resolution at the TLD level, the Board members seemed to lean towards having an independent dispute resolution process. W Seltzer noted that it was important to prevent ICANN from getting involved with moral issues such as defining what TLDs should be allowed on grounds of morality because this was not in the purview of ICANN’s mission.
R Guerra noted he agreed with W Seltzer’s statement.
H Xue gave a short overview on current IDN issues. She pointed out that one of the most contentious political issues in the IDN sphere concerns objections. It is currently not clear what should happen if one country disputes a string proposed by another.
With regards to the IDN liaison report, the Chair noted that she was concerned that the Fasttrack process for IDN ccTLDs was getting too complicated.
A Muehlberg asked the IDN liaison if is it was possible to have introductory material. H Xue noted that she planned writing an introduction on IDNs in plain language.
It was suggested to have the Staff remind the Working group liaisons to post their reports before ALAC meetings to post to the Website at at large policy working groups
ALS Application status
The Staff informed the participants about the ALS application status. (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pDH-2Ym3VBKcDC3mA5enWfw&hl=en)
ALS Vote
A number of voice votes were announced:
B Brendler and R Guerra asked that a vote be recorded that followed all the regional advice. S Bachollet asked that a vote be recorded to follow the regional advise for all applications except France@Large on which he will not vote.
It was decided that the ICANN ombudsman should be involved to offer his good offices in advance of a formal request for action by the applicant france@large.
C Langdon-Orr will approach the ombudsman to ask him how he could formally be engaged by the ALAC.
The staff will inform the applicant of France@Large of the result of the vote.
R Guerra noted that he would like to have a vote to change the wording of the ALS votes. A Greenberg noted that he tried to look up the most current ALAC rules of procedure and could not find them on the website. The Staff agreed to send out a link to those most current.
It seemed to be generally felt among the ALAC members that the wording of the ALS votes should be changed to more simple language.
The Staff will re-distribute the final document on the process mechanism on ALS application that was adopted in San Juan. The issue will be resolved on the mailing list by the ALAC members.
Ratification and Status of ALAC Statements launched since the last Meeting
The Chair proposed having a having a standing agenda item for discussing current ALAC statements. No objection was made to this proposal. Staff will ensure that this is included in forthcoming agendas.
B Brendler noted that there was some concern among the NARALO members about the fact that only a small number of At-Large members seemed to participate in the policy process. He said that there will always be ALAC members who do not have an opinion on certain issues and that the way forward could perhaps be to have something like a roll call before statements are adopted to have more of an active consensus.
A Greenberg pointed out he was in favour of there always being a formal vote on ALAC statements. He noted that in the Joint Statement of Users on GNSO improvements there were statements that he would not have wanted to be associated with would he have been able to withdraw his support, but that he had participated in the confidential discussions on that document not on his own behalf but as a community leader, and as a result he had not registered his personal objection. Were a separate vote to be held on ALAC statements, he would have been able to have recorded this personal view.
The Chair noted that the process used for the three statements was by its nature iterative, and that the process for forthcoming work should be discussed in Paris on Sunday in order to further improve it going forward. There was general agreement with this way of proceeding.
There seemed to be conflicting views held on the role of NomCom members and Working groups. The issue could not be resolved on this conference and will be continued online.
The Chair noted that she felt sorry for A Greenberg for the criticism he received after not having passed on to NARALO the joint statement of users the that was labelled confidential.
Flowchart of Statements
The Staff asked if it would it be useful to provide a flowchart-based view of how the three statements were created and the various levels of comments taken.
The Chair said that she welcomed this suggestion.
The Staff will produce a flowchart-based view on the creation of ALAC statements.
The Staff will send out a meeting planer to reconvene this meeting in 5 to 7 days to be able to plan for the meeting in Paris.
Agenda Items 4 and 5 of the Items for decision at this meeting and all the Agenda Items for discussion only will be carried over to the next ALAC meeting.
The Chair adjourned the meeting at 1505 UTC.
27 May meeting
(The 13 May meeting was resumed and outstanding agenda items were carried over)
Participants: N Thu Hue, V Scartezini, C Langdon-Orr (Chair), R Sherwood, H Xue (IDN liaison), W Seltzer (Board Liaison), J Morris (ccNSO liaison), F Seye Sylla, H Diakite, D Kasole, A Greenberg, J Ovidio Salgueiro
Apologies: C Aguirre, R Guerra, A Muehlberg
Absent: M El Bashir, I Aizu, S Bachollet, B Brendler
Staff: F Teboul, M Langenegger, N Ashton-Hart
Minutes taken by Staff in first instance
There was no quorum at the beginning of the meeting.
List moderation
The ALAC members discussed about how to proceed with the currently moderated mailing list member.
S Bachollet suggested lifting list moderation for the person in question.
R Sherwood noted that he was in favour of banning the person in question because excessive posting leads to list fatigue and discouraged the participation of other mailing list members. He suggested putting the issue to a broader poll including the list participant.
The Chair noted that she sent three warnings to the person in question during moderation.
The issue will go to broader polling. The question will be whether the moderated mailing list subscriber should be banned or not will be put to the list subscribers.
Public Comment periods
H Diakite noted that 45 days would be desirable to the current mechanism.
V Scartezini also believes the additional time would give them some flexibility.
The Board Liaison was asked to flag this as an issue at the Board level.
The Chair noted that E Leibovitch made an excellent template for the Briefings.
F Seye Silla suggested having more reminders and having smaller pieces at a time.
J Morris noted that the translations often come up to 3 weeks after the comment period has started. She therefore suggested that the comment period start when the translations have been distributed.
The ALAC will explore the matter of public comment periods and the best mechanism to increase the ability of all to participate further and come up with a statement in due course.
The Staff encouraged the ALAC members to participate in the multilingual survey and to encourage others to participate.
The matters of the ALAC working group and representation of regions will be subject of the OneDay Paris workshop in Paris (Sunday 22 June).
The next ALAC teleconference will be on 10 June at 1330 UTC.
